Sarah johnson's Arc

Chapter 6 of 7

The hospital room was quiet except for the beep of the machine. Jake lay still under white sheets, his black hair dark against the pillow. A bandage wrapped his head. Sarah sat in the hard chair beside the bed and held his cold hand. His mother had gone to sign forms. The doctors said the same thing each time they came: his pulse was weak, and they had to wait for him to wake. Sarah hated waiting. She had never been good at it. She thought of the race he dared her to run, back when he was whole and loud. She thought of his pig-snort laugh at the dinner table. His mother had warned her once that she didn't tolerate people who ran from hard things. Sarah would not run now. She leaned close to his ear. "You moved your fingers in the ambulance," she said. "I felt it. So do it again." She squeezed his hand hard. "You owe me a rematch, Jake. You can't win if you sleep through it." Nothing. The machine beeped on. She tried again, louder. "I counted us at the mailbox. You cheated last time. I know you did." Her voice shook. "Prove me wrong." The line on the screen climbed. It climbed higher than before. Sarah stood, still gripping his hand. "Jake?" His fingers moved. First one, then the rest, curling around hers. His eyelids fluttered. Then his green eyes opened, cloudy and slow. They found her face. His cracked lips pulled sideways into that crooked grin. "You're loud," he whispered. Sarah laughed and cried at once. "You're awake." "Did I win?" His voice was barely there. A small snort escaped him, the start of his laugh, and it ended in a cough. "No," she said. "We never finished. You quit halfway." "Rematch," he breathed. His eyes stayed open this time. She pressed the call button on the wall. A nurse hurried in, then another. They crowded the bed and checked his eyes, his pulse, the line on the screen. One of them smiled. "He's with us," she said. "He's really with us." The door swung open. Jake's mother rushed in, papers still in her hand. She saw her son's open eyes and dropped the papers to the floor. She grabbed his face and kissed his forehead above the bandage. Then she turned to Sarah. Her blue eyes were wet. She pulled Sarah into her arms and held her tight. "You stayed," the mother said. "You didn't run." Sarah held on. Over the woman's shoulder, she watched Jake watching her. He mouthed something she couldn't hear. The nurse stepped back from the bed. "He needs rest now," she said. "And there are officers outside. They have questions. They say the men who took him didn't act alone." Sarah's arms went still. Jake's grin faded. Someone else was still out there.